Cameron Awkward-Rich Receives Lannan Literary Fellowship

Cameron Awkward-Rich, poet and assistant professor in the department of women, gender, sexuality studies at UMass Amherst, has been awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship in poetry from the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, Lannan Literary Awards and Fellowships recognize both emerging and established writers who have made significant contributions to English-language literature. The fellowships recognize writers of distinctive literary merit who demonstrate potential for continued outstanding work.

Image

According to the Lannan Foundation website, “the foundation hopes to stimulate the creation of literature written originally in the English language and to develop a wider audience for contemporary prose and poetry,” through their literary awards and fellowships.  

The awards and fellowships are especially impressive as open applications are not accepted. Rather, candidates for awards and fellowships are recommended to the foundation by a network of writers, literary scholars, publishers and editors.

Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of two collections of poetry, “Sympathetic Little Monster” and “Dispatch,” both Lambda Literary Award finalists. Duke University Press will release his book “The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment” in fall 2022. His writing has appeared in “Poetry,” the “American Poetry Review,” “Transgender Studies Quarterly,” “Signs,” the “Paris Review,” and elsewhere and has been supported by fellowships from Cave Canem, the Watering Hole, Duke University and the American Council of Learned Societies.